TOUCH-SCREEN TECHNOLOGY

Author Sivaranjan Goswami Don Bosco College of Engineering and technology, Guwahati, India

Touch-Screen mobile phones and monitors have become very popular these days. Almost every one of us wants to have a touch-screen mobile phone in our hands. A Touch-Screen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. There are many technologies that can be employed to detect a persons touch in these devices. Some of these techniques are described below Resistive System: The Resistive System consists of a normal glass panel that is covered with a conductive and a resistive metallic layer. These two layers are held apart by spacers, and a scratch-resistant layer is placed on top of the whole setup. An electric current runs through the two layers while the monitor is operational. When a user touches the screen, the two layers make contact in that exact spot. The change in the electrical field is noted and the coordinates of the point of contact are calculated by the computer.
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Capacitive System: In the Capacitive System, a layer that stores electrical charge is placed on the glass panel of the monitor. When a user touches the monitor with his or her finger, some of the charge is transferred to the user, so the charge on the capacitive layer decreases. This decrease is measured in circuits located at each corner of the monitor. The computer calculates, from the relative differences in charge at each corner, exactly where the touch event took place and then relays that information to the touch-screen driver software. The Capacitive System has a much clearer picture than the Resistive System because of less absorption of light.
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Infrared Touch Screen: An Infrared Touch Screen uses an array of X-Y Infrared LED and photo-detector pairs around the edges of the screen to detect a disruption in the pattern of LED beams. A major benefit of such a system is that it can detect essentially any input including a finger, gloved finger, stylus or pen. It is generally used in outdoor applications and point-of-sale systems which can't rely on a conductor (such as a bare finger) to activate the Touch Screen.
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Strain Gauge: In a strain gauge configuration, also called force panel technology, the screen is spring-mounted on the four corners and strain gauges are used to determine deflection when the screen is touched. It can also measure the Z-axis and the force of a person's touch
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Optical Imaging: This is a relatively modern development in Touch-Screen technology, in which two or more image sensors are placed around the edges (mostly the corners) of the screen. Infrared back lights are placed in the camera's field of view on the other side of the screen. A touch shows up as a shadow and each pair of cameras can then be triangulated to locate the touch or even measure the size of the touching object. This technology is growing in popularity, due to its scalability, versatility, and affordability, especially for larger units.
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Dispersive Signal Technology: Introduced in 2002, this system uses sensors to detect the mechanical energy in the glass that occurs due to a touch. Complex algorithms then interpret this information and provide the actual location of the touch. The technology claims to be unaffected by dust and other outside elements, including scratches. Since there is no need for additional elements on screen, it also claims to provide excellent optical clarity. Also, since mechanical vibrations are used to detect a touch event, any object can be used to generate these events, including fingers and stylus. A downside is that after the initial touch the system cannot detect a motionless finger.
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Acoustic pulse recognition: This system was introduced in 2006. It uses piezoelectric transducers located at various positions around the screen to turn the mechanical energy of a touch (vibration) into an electronic signal. The screen hardware then uses an algorithm to determine the location of the touch based on the transducer signals. The Touch-Screen itself is made of ordinary glass, giving it good durability and optical clarity. It is usually able to function with scratches and dust on the screen with good accuracy.
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